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The Ted and Chris Robb Garden

Thanks to the Ted and Chris Robb Garden, organic produce is grown right on Pacific's Stockton campus and made available to students, local community members, faculty, and staff.

The idea for a campus food garden on Pacific's Stockton Campus first arose from Pacific students Fiona Kelly and Vinny Johl, who in 2010 were involved in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI-U) Conference and made the planning, design and construction of a campus garden at Pacific their specific CGI-U commitment. They remained involved as a proposal was developed for "The Pacific Campus Garden" in 2010-2011. This proposal was presented to then-Regent Walter Robb (at that time co-CEO of Whole Foods), who made a generous initial gift in the fall of 2011 to fund the construction of the garden. The first phase of the garden was completed in the fall of 2012. It was named the Ted and Chris Robb Garden after Robb's two sons, who are both Pacific alumni.

Walter Robb's intention in making a gift to create a campus garden was to promote growing food using methods that are not only organic, but biointensive. Specifically, he wished for the Robb Garden to follow the approach of John Jeavons of Ecology Action Farm in Willits, which has developed its own specific variant of the biointensive method called Grow Biointensive®.

Walter Robb made a second, larger gift to the University in 2014, which was used to double the size of the garden, to provide operating costs for managing the garden, and to support summer internships for students to learn the biointensive gardening method at the Ecology Action Farm, in Willits, CA. This second gift also supported the construction of a plaza between the Robb Garden and the Geosciences Center, named after Walter Robb's daughter Abigail. The plaza is lined with large specimen boulders selected by members of the Geological and Environmental Sciences faculty, including Arizona Sandstone, Serpentine, and Greenstone. The boulders have broad, flat surfaces that are just right for sitting down to have a chat, or jumping upon to recite a poem.

The Ted and Chris Robb Garden/Abigail Robb Plaza are located on University of Pacific Stockton's South Campus:

What Are We Growing?

The Robb Garden grows three main crops per year: fall, spring, and summer. In general, seeds are planted in flats and raised for 4-6 weeks indoors, and are then transplanted into the garden beds. For fall crops, seeds are planted in late summer and transplanted in early September. Seeds for spring crops are planted in December and January and transplanted in early February. Seeds of summer crops are planted in March and transplanted in April or May. Harvests occur during most of the year. Timing of crop plantings and harvests are synchronized with the semesters, so that students can be involved as much as possible.